


Forget Me Not

by Flutiebear



Category: Dragon Quest Series, Dragon Quest XI
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Best Friends, Chapter 2 is explicit, Childhood Sweethearts, Dicks Everywhere Dicks Ok, Feelings, Feelings Will Get You Every Time, Friends to Lovers, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Hendrik and Sylvando has a sad, Light Angst, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, Porn with Feelings, Reunited and It Feels So Good, Sirs Jade Serena and Veronica Not Appearing In This Film, Temporary Amnesia, a sad which they are about to solve by doing it, long lost lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-04 12:33:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16346804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flutiebear/pseuds/Flutiebear
Summary: Both Hendrik and Sylvando grapple with being forgotten, and with those things they can't forget. Takes place in Act 2, after getting Erik back but before you do his personal quest. Spoilers, obviously, up to that point. Explicit content in Chapter 2.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This scene takes place some point in Act 2, after you get Erik back but before you do his personal quest. At that point, I had Rab, Erik, Sylvando and Hendrik in my party, but none of the ladies, so that's why they don't appear here. 
> 
> Chapter 1 isn't exactly PG, but Chapter 2 is where the actual sex takes place. Definitely NSFW. You've been warned.
> 
> This is all alpacas fault, who got me shipping these two HARD. If you haven't read "you didn't even notice (when the sky turned blue)" do it now: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16260452
> 
> Oh! And if you'd connect on Tumblr, feel free! Same alias, same bat channel.

**_"We're all the best of friends, of course, but you and Erik have something special. You're like brothers…. I can't help but feel a little jealous when I see you two together. Ah, if only I'd been thrown in the Heliodorian dungeons… Maybe then you and I would have that certain special something instead!"_ **

In the campfire's glow, the Luminary's face looks older, careworn, as if he were split from the side of a mountain. He bends toward Erik like he might break, then says something in a voice too low for Sylvando to hear—

—not that he was eavesdropping, of course. Sylvando is too much of a gentleman for that. But after so many years center-stage, he can't help it if his ears are trained to discern furtively whispered lines, even when he'd rather not.

"No," Erik says with a sigh. "I can't remember that either."

The expression on the Luminary's face tears at Sylvando. He'd teased his friend about it earlier, but the truth is, Sylvando _is_ envious of what he and Erik shared—of how openly the two cared for each other, how easily devotion seemed to come to them both. It has never been so easy for Sylvando. Sure, he puts up a good front, spreading smiles and affection in his wake like so many rose petals. But affection is easy when there's nothing behind it. When the heart that breaks isn't your own.

And for the bond between Erik and the Luminary to have so suddenly unraveled—no, to have _vanished_ , as if it had never been…

Well, it's just not fair. Sylvando knows _that_ better than most.

Hendrik's book snaps shut, startling Sylvando from his thoughts.

"The day has been arduous for us all. Come, we must rest," says Hendrik, his glower full of meaning and import, because when is it ever not? The tent behind them rattles with one of Rab's snores, as if to punctuate the point. 

Sylvando claps his hands. The Luminary and Erik briefly look up, startled. "You heard the man, darlings."

"I meant," says Hendrik, with more meaning, more import, " _we_ must rest."

"No, darling, I couldn't possibly—"

"Tent." Hendrik commands. "Now."

Sylvando casts one last lingering look at the Luminary, who either does not notice Sylvando trying to catch his gaze, or pretends not to. Sylvando sighs. It just feels so _wrong_ to leave those two boys out here, bereft, grasping after shadows. They shouldn't have to go through this alone.

But then Hendrik lays one massive paw on his shoulder and forces the point.

Once inside the tent, Hendrik lets go of Sylvando's shoulder and unrolls his bedroll in silence, without so much as another glance in Sylvando's direction.

Sylvando doesn't move to do the same.

"Do you really think we should leave those two on their own right now?" he whispers, watching Hendrik's hulking shadow move in the low light. If he squints, Sylvando can almost make out the line of Hendrik's shoulders, the muscles flexing, solid, _real_. "They've been through so much lately."

"It is none of our concern." Hendrik sounds tired.

"Of course it's our concern, darling." Sylvando puts his hands on his hips. "They're our friends."

" _Your_ friends." Hendrik shuffles something around in his pack. "They barely know of me, save for the several occasions on which I tried to arrest or murder them, sometimes both at once."

"Oh, let it go, darling. That's all in the past now."

Hendrik inhales sharply. It's a sound Sylvando remembers all too well, one that indicates Hendrik is trying to salvage what's left of his fraying control.  

" _You_ might be able to relinquish the past at will," he says. "But it does not come so easily to me." 

Sylvano's pulse pounds in his ears like a drum. Hendrik could not have chosen poorer words to say, even if he'd tried.

"I think you might surprise yourself, honey," Sylvando mutters. "You seem a natural talent at it to me."

Hendrik doesn't answer.

Silence falls between them, punctuated only by the occasional snore from Rab. Hendrik shifts on his bedroll. He tosses, he turns. But eventually, his breathing becomes even and deep.

Not so for Sylvando.

No, Sylvando cannot sleep. He doesn't even bother to try. Instead, he stares at the canvas above his head for what feels like hours, memorizing each dark stain, each fraying thread. He keeps at it long after Erik and the Luminary come to their own bedrolls, which are now separated by a polite distance, about an arm's length between them.

The poor boy. To be forgotten is the worst feeling in the world. Sylvando wishes desperately he could shield his friend from it.

That he could shield himself.

With a sigh, Sylvando disentangles himself from his bedroll and goes out to the campfire. The fire is mostly embers now; the moon, almost full, provides far more light, harsh as it is. Sylvando sits on a log, hugs his knees to his chest and finally lets himself indulge in the memories that had nipped at the edges of his mind all evening.

_Hendrik's hands on his back, his waist, his hips. Lips, warm and wet. Breath against his jaw, his throat. Thick fingers on him, everywhere, exploring, claiming. Taking him in hand like a sword pommel. Gasps, sighs. Pleasure, bright and brief—_

Hendrik might have forgotten. But Sylvando could never forget.

Teasing Hendrik for not recognizing him back at Phnom Nonh had been funny, at first, but only until Sylvando realized that something had broken inside him not to be noticed, not to be _seen_ , by the one person who had once known him best.

Back then, it had always been the two of them, hadn't it? Together, always together, training under Papi, stumbling toward manhood: Hendrik and Norberto. Norberto and Hendrik. Partners in crime. Joined at the hip.   

That final summer in Puerto Valor, so fraught with longing.

Those bright, sun-kissed days.

Those wild, feverish nights.

_His hair falling into your eyes, as he gasps, as he bucks, as he—_

"You're still awake," rumbles Hendrik's voice from the tent.

Sylvando doesn't turn. He couldn't bear to meet Hendrik's gaze right now and only see a blank wall staring back at him. 

"You must rest, S-Sylvando." The name trips awkwardly off Hendrik's tongue. "You are no good to the party exhausted."

"Same for you, darling." He rests his chin in one hand and watches a fleck of ash spiral away from the fire. "Even stone-headed brutes need their beauty sleep."

There's a pause. Then shuffling, and grunting, and suddenly Hendrik is lowering himself down on the log next to Sylvando. He offers a weak smile that doesn't quite go to his eyes. "May I join you?"

"Seems you already have."

"So I have." He sighs. "It seems sleep eludes me as well."

Hendrik stretches his hands toward the meager fire as if to warm them, which would be hilarious, if Sylvando ever felt like laughing again.

"I—I would like to clear the air. Between us." Hendrik's voice is gruff, clipped.

The space between their shoulders tugs at Sylvando, simultaneously too near and a chasm too wide to cross. Sylvando won't look at it, lest he fall in. "If you have something to say, then say it, darling."

"Please forgive me for not recognizing you at once back in Phnom Nomh. I did not expect to see you again in such a forsaken place, nor wearing so many … er… feathers."

Sylvando narrows his eyes. As far as apologies go, this one leaves a lot to be desired. "The feathers were the most important part, darling."

"Why is that?"

"They make people laugh."

Hendrik considers this. "And that is what you wish? For people to laugh at you?"

Sylvando throws up his hands. "To _laugh_. Full-stop. At me, with me, around me. It doesn't matter. I just want them to laugh." He fights back the urge to open his mouth and scream to the heavens, to the hole in the sky where Yggdrasil should be; to scream and scream and never stop. "So that's how you felt when you finally recognized me. You wanted to laugh at me."

"Never." Hendrik's fists tighten in his lap. "But Norb—Sylvando, you must admit it was rather a shock. We have not seen each other in ten years."

"Twelve, actually." The raw emotion in Hendrik's voice ebbs the fire coursing Sylvando's veins. Somewhat. "But who's counting?" 

"I thought I would never see you again. Then to find you here somehow, alive, miraculously, in this ruined, desolate world—" He shakes his head. "It does not seem right."

"Joy must go where joy is needed most. And my Soldiers of Smile and I were needed in Phnom Nonh."

"I… see."

"No, honey," Sylvando sighs, "I don't think that you do."

"You are correct, I do not." Hendrik suddenly turns to Sylvando, red-cheeked, eyes blazing. "I cannot comprehend understand any of this. The World Tree has fallen; darkness has cursed the land. I find myself fighting alongside sworn enemies, and hunting a man once I called brother. All of Erdrea has turned on its end. Then, amidst all this chaos, _you_ reappear."

Sylvando clenches his jaw. "Sorry to disappoint you." 

"That is not—I—" Hendrik makes a wolf-like growl and tears at his hair. "Why, Sylvando? Why did I have to find you here, and why did it have to be now? Why not twelve years ago, when still I might have made a difference?"

Sylvando's brows knit together viciously. "Excuse me?"

"You left Puerto Valor at the apex of your training. You had so much promise. You could have been the greatest knight Erdrea had ever known. How could you simply throw it all away to—to— _join the circus_?"

"I threw away nothing, _darling._ I threw away less than nothing." Hendrik physically flinches from the words, but Sylvando doesn't care. His tongue drips with venom. He is a snake, and he wants nothing more to strike the killing blow. "Everything that mattered I carried with me, in here." He lays a hand over his racing heart. "I hated who I was, who I was being forced to become. But the circus loved me, darling. It took me in, and it never tried to change me. Far from it. The circus _saved_ me."

"But your father needed you. I needed—" Hendrik swallows the end of his sentence. "We all needed you."

"Ha! Not one of you needed me. Especially not you—strong, thick-headed, bullish Hendrik. You never needed anybody, unless it was someone to spar with and strive against."

"That is not true."

"It is. You probably forgot all about me a week after I left."

" _Never."_

Hendrik grabs Sylvando by the shoulders. His chin, his mouth, is inches from Sylvando's. His eyes capture the moonlight and burn like cold fire.

"I could never, not in a thousand lifetimes, forget about you." His voice is barely a whisper. "You were my best friend, my partner, my—" He shakes his head. "For years, you haunted my every waking thought. You haunt my dreams still. But _you_ left _me, mijn schatje,_ and you did so without so much as a goodbye."

"I—I'm sorry." Warmth pools in Sylvando's cheeks, in his belly, in parts beyond. Despite himself, he licks his trembling lips. "Hendrik, I am sorry. I didn't realize."

Hendrik's eyes drift down.

At once, he comes back to his senses. He releases Sylvando and stares miserably into the fire.

Many moments of silence pass before Sylvando is able to quell the shaking in his hands, to calm his stuttering breath. His thoughts flutter about like the butterflies in his stomach. His lips tingle.

Hendrik had been so close. Close enough to taste.

"Why is it so important to you," Hendrik drops his head into his hands, "to make everybody else in the world happy?"

"Because happiness is precious." Sylvando closes his eyes. Inhales. Exhales. But he can't get the memory of Hendrik's mouth out of his mind. Erdrea has narrowed to a single point, just out of Sylvando's reach. "Joy only lasts for so long, before it is gone. That's why we must protect it, and nurture it, whenever we can."

"Heh," Hendrik laughs woodenly. "You sound more the knight than I do."

"I always was the better student."

Hendrik watches Sylvando out of the corner of his eye. "And what of your happiness, Sylvando? And mine? Does that not signify, as well?" 

"Darling." Inhale. Exhale. Just breathe, Sylvando. _Breathe_. "You and I—that is how I learned that happiness is fleeting."

Hendrik groans.

"Put me out of my misery. Tell me that—what we shared—tell me that it meant nothing to you." Hendrik's hands fall to his lap, where they clench at air, then let go. "That it ought to mean nothing to me as well."

Sylvando swallows thickly. He has faced dragons; he has performed before kings. He has even faced down his own father. But this, right now, is the most terrified he has ever felt.

"I won't, not now, not ever." He lays his hand overtop Hendrik's and gives those broad, motionless fingers a little squeeze. "I haven't told a lie since I left Puerto Valor, and I'm not about to start now."

Hendrik stares at their hands joined together, as if he isn't sure what he is seeing.

And then he tugs.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annnnnd here comes the porn, as promised. Young ones, cover your eyes, please.

Sylvando doesn't so much as fall into Hendrik as collide with him, as a breaker crashes into a cliff. Hendrik's free hand twists and tangles in Sylvando's hair as he crushes their lips together; his mouth warm, and wet, and oh-so-inviting.

It is a rough kiss, a hungry kiss. A kiss to banish all doubt. Somehow Hendrik tastes exactly how Sylvando remembers, and nothing like it at all.

Breathless, Sylvando pulls away—not far, but far enough to elicit a little groan of protest from Hendrik. The noise goes straight to Sylvando's loins. Suddenly he forgets why he'd pulled away.

Then a great snore rattles the tent behind them.

Oh yes, _that's_ why.

"Wait." Sylvando's hands twist in Hendrik's tunic. "They'll hear us."

"Over Lord Robert?" Hendrik leans closer, lips glistening in the campfire. "Erdwin's Lantern could crash to earth and still the lot of them would slumber on."

Sylvando caresses Hendrik's cheek. The stubble there is rough under his fingertips. "Rab, maybe, but I simply wouldn't want to shock the boys. They are so young and innocent, after all."

"For the love of…" Hendrik suddenly bellows, an animal noise of rage and frustration. It echoes in the rocks and across the stream. About a horsetrack's length from the campsite, a flock of drackies takes flight in fear.

Sylvando waits, heart racing, eyes locked on Hendrik's.

But nothing stirs within the tent.

Sylvando shrugs. "Good enough for me."

He straddles Hendrik—or tries to, anyway; in his enthusiasm he pitches the two of them over the log on which Hendrik sits and onto the hard dirt. They both laugh a little.

But then their mouths meet again, and all laughter—and, indeed, all conscious thought—flies from Sylvando's mind, replaced by want, by ache, by _need_. Hendrik's mouth and beard are so soft, and his hands so strong; and Sylvando can't stop pressing into him, can't stop squirming and rubbing and savoring the feel of Hendrik's mountainous body against his own.  

They make short work of Hendrik's tunic, Sylvando's costume. Belts and boots and breeches fly. The night is cool and the campfire low, but Sylvando barely notices, all of his awareness narrowed to the silken slide of skin on skin; to that empty space between their bodies, aching to be filled.

Hendrik's fingertips dig into Sylvando's hips, grinding him closer; and the pleasure is so great that Sylvando forces himself to stop, because he is a gentleman, and a gentleman does not come from ten minutes of dry-humping in the dark, no matter how desperately he might want to.

"You want this, yes?" Sylvando's breath comes fast. "You want—me?"

"Yes, _mjin schatje._ " Hendrik's hands slide to Sylvando's ass and linger there. The sensation is excruciating and exhilarating at once. "I want you. But you—you are—having second thoughts?"

Sylvando shakes his head. "No. I just need a minute, that's all."

Drawing a ragged breath, he drops his head to Hendrik's chest. The skin there is crisscrossed with scars: some fresh, some white with age; each a victory won, a battle survived. Sylvando doesn't recognize half of them, and his heart squeezes with all the guilt and longing he has never allowed himself to feel, not before this moment.

He presses his lips to one of the scars. The hair there is soft, like grass growing across a battlefield. It smells like something Sylvando can't quite place, except by instinct.

Hendrik moans at the touch.

Sylvando laughs, his fingertips skimming the bare skin of Hendrik's bear-like arms. Perhaps Sylvando isn't the only one struggling to keep his cool.

"Stay with me, darling," he murmurs, to himself as much as Hendrik. "The grand finale is yet to come. Don't rush your cue."

Hendrik responds by wrapping those massive arms around Sylvando and pulling him closer. "I do not understand circus metaphors."

Hendrik's erection juts into Sylvando's belly like a sword-point, and now it is Sylvando's time to moan, shamelessly, and not just for the obvious reasons; but also because he can't remember the last time he was held like this: safe, protected, shielded from all the world's slings and arrows.  

Sylvando's shiver is from more than just the cool evening air.  

He makes his way up to Hendrik's mouth, trailing kisses in his wake. He threads his fingers through Hendrik's hair and peers down at him through thick lashes.   

"Did you think of me like this, darling," Sylvando says almost shyly, "in the years that we were apart?"

_Did you think of us fucking?_ That's what Sylvando truly wants to ask, but cannot make his lips form the words. _Of our sweat-damp bodies pressed together in the dark, as fervent as a prayer; of shaking hands on buckles and laces, our breath mingling; of sticky hands and salt-kissed tongues, quietly now, we must be quiet, so Papi doesn't catch us--_

"Every day." Hendrik kisses him again, and again. "Most nights, as well."

Sylvando can't bear it any longer. So much for taking it slow. So much for being a gentleman. Instead, he crawls overtop Hendrik and lowers himself down, until he feels Hendrik's thighs beneath him as solid as mountains. Their bare cocks slide against each other with delicious friction. 

Sylvando rolls into the pressure until Hendrik gasps.

Then he does it again, and again.

Hendrik's hands roam, his palms rough and calloused, sliding across Sylvando's back, over his thighs, then slowly, carefully, into the space between their bellies. He takes both their cocks in one hand.

Hendrik's breath is fast and heavy, just as it was when they were teenagers.

His arm begins to move.

Sylvando tries not to wince. The touch is good, so good, but also—a little too much.

Holding Hendrik's gaze, Sylvando stops the motion. Then he takes Hendrik's massive hand in both of his and brings it to his mouth. He licks it, wetting it all over, sucking on the fingertips a little, until all those rough callouses are slick to glistening. Only then does Sylvando return Hendrik's hand to its former purchase. 

He winks.

"A little Hot Lick can do wonders," he says.

Hendrik lets out a laugh that is more breath than anything else.

Hot and hard, they rut against each other. Sylvando loses himself in the movement: in the brace of Hendrik's thighs, in each gasp and moan that tumbles from the man like an avalanche. Hendrik's mouth is at his ear, his jaw, his throat. Pleading.

_Please,_ one of them whispers, over and over again, and Sylvando isn't sure which. _Please._  

They fall into a steady, insistent rhythm. Sylvando's damp hair drips into his eyes; Hendrik's shoulders shake. Their bodies gleam in the moonlight.

Rough fingers press into the small of Sylvando's back, insistent, unyielding, refusing to let go, and it's so much like it was back then, in those far gone days, that Sylvando's heart aches and aches until he fears it might break. 

All the world's a stage to Sylvando, but not right here, not with Hendrik. There are no performances between them, no pretenses. There never have been. 

They move and move, faster and harder now, until suddenly Hendrik tenses, every muscle gone rigid. His face screws up as if in pain.

Then there is a muffled cry as Hendrik buries his head in Sylvando's shoulder. Wet warmth spills between them, coating Sylvando's thighs, his cock, his belly. The sensation is enough to send Sylvando over the edge, too.

Sylvando comes, and in so doing, comes apart. 

Neither moves for several heartbeats, dampness cooling on their backs and between their bodies. Sylvando drapes himself limply across Hendrik, who holds him tightly, even still.

"Never again," he mutters, the words thrumming through Sylvando's flesh.

"What was that?" Sylvando tenses, because surely Hendrik can't already regret this, surely he can let this moment last just a little longer, _please,_ at least until sunrise—

But as if Hendrik could read Sylvando's thoughts, his arms tighten. "Never again shall I let you go."

"Oh." Sylvando lets out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. "Is that a promise?"

Hendrik's hand comes to Sylvando's chin and tips it so that their gazes meet. "It is my word," he says. "And a knight's word—"

"—is his bond," finishes Sylvando, warmth blooming on his cheeks. The familiar words hang between them like Erdwin's Lantern, perpetually falling, unforgettable, as bright and catastrophic as a star.


End file.
